Usually, a simple graphical environment is a denial of built-in functionality, but as we see - not always. As it turns out, a example of simple and functional distribution at the same time is Elive 2.0 released few days ago.
One of the biggest advantages is that the distribution is relying directly on the popular Debian and use a minimalist environment called Enlightenment. This makes the Elive can run on a computer equipped with a 100 MHz processor and only 64 MB of memory. Is also not required 3D acceleration on the graphics card.